Best movies like The Piano in a Factory

24 City chronicles the dramatic closing of a once-prosperous state-owned factory in Chengdu, southwest China and its conversion into a sprawling luxury apartment complex. Three generations, eight characters : old workers, factory executives and yuppies, their stories melt into the History of China.

Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul's engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.

This Oscar-nominated documentary short tracks the shift in the relationship of an individual to his work between the 19th century and today. Focusing on how nails are made, we first see a blacksmith laboring at his forge, shaping nails from single strands of steel rods. The scene then shifts from this peaceful setting to the roar of a 20th century nail mill, where banks of machines draw, cut, and pound the steel rods faster than the eye can follow.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

A former All-American football star, now working as a steel mill supervisor in New Jersey, falls in love with the mill owner's wealthy, very spoiled daughter.

A Malcolm St. Clair silent boxing sports romantic love triangle prison melodrama about a steel worker who saves a girl in a bar fight by knocking out the man coming on to her. It turns out the man was a boxer named "Killer"; so our steel worker becomes a boxer, but is then arrested for a crime he didn't commit. While in prison, he continues training, so that when he gets out, he can fight "Killer"; he is losing the fight, but his girl tells him that "Killer" framed him, which gives him the drive to knock his opponent out in the final round!

Alex Owens, a teen juggling between two odd jobs, aspires to become a successful ballet dancer. Nick, who is her boss and lover, supports and encourages her to fulfil her dream.

Monty is a mechanic struggling to make ends meet as he raises his three young daughters. When the court awards custody of his daughters to his shady ex-wife, Monty desperately tries to win them back with the help of Julia, a beautiful, Ivy League-educated attorney. Monty and Julia couldn't be less alike, but a flame is ignited...touching off a firestorm of love and conflict.

Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam convinces high-priced lawyer Rita to take his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.

The S. S. Claridon is scheduled for her five last voyages after thirty-eight years of service. After an explosion in the boiler room, Captain Robert Adams is reluctant to evacuate the steamship. While the crew fights to hold a bulkhead between the flooded boiler room and the engine room and avoid the sinking of the vessel, the passenger Cliff Henderson struggles against time trying to save his beloved wife Laurie Henderson, who is trapped under a steel beam in her cabin, with the support of the crew member Hank Lawson.

A depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.

A love triangle forms the basis of this drama. It all begins in a steel mill when a steel worker ignores the besotted gazes of his landlady at the boarding house and falls in love with a gold-digger. His best friend also finds himself smitten by the seductive young woman. But when the one of the workers fritters away a collection that had been taken up for the wife of a deceased co-worker on a foolish bet, he and the vamp take off until the good-hearted landlady intervenes and convinces them to stay and take their lumps.

A woman decides to fight against her powerful oppressor. When the guard of a chilli factory helps her, the women and the teacher of the village join them to openly defy the prevailing repression.

An elderly widow must find meaning and activity in her life when her son suggests she is no longer capable of handling her own affairs.

SPYING TURNS TO SECURITY DETAIL AS A YOUNG COUPLE AVOIDS MURDER, THE MOB, AND THE PAST. Human cloning, surveillance, and a life threatening relationship take center stage in this romantic thriller. Re-Released in the fall of 2012, SPY tells the story of Dante LeClair (Vincent Pastore) who was forced by mob boss (Frank Vincent) to fund illegal and unethical medical experiments after his daughter Susan (Lora Kojovic) was injured.

A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.

Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to bring back to football respectability.

After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.

John Dawson loses control of his factory when he is crippled in an accident caused by a rival. Destitute, he travels the country organizing the homeless to help him regain control of his steel mill.

A blue-collar construction worker is left alone to care for his infant daughter after his wife dies.

A steelworker and his aspiring wife make millions when they become partners in a dyeworks. Unfortunately, success does not bring happiness.

Steve Kostain, nephew of the owner, begins working at a steel mill to learn the business from the bottom up. He rooms with a steel working family, the McNamaras, and falls for the daughter, "Red", who is already involved with another steelworker. Although he is at first has a hard time with his co-workers, he eventually wins them over, and also wins the girl.

In a distant nation, even foreign to those within, an oppressed factory worker embarks on a perilous odyssey to find his polka idol and prove himself to his long-lost love.

When Kelsey remarries, her struggle to get custody of her daughter from her first marriage is complicated by her current husband being black.

Keith and Kim Lussier are a childless couple who are given custody of a 3-month-old foster child, Brittany. However, tragedy strikes when Kim dies of cancer in the middle of the adoption process, leaving Keith to fight for Brittany's custody alone.

Feeling unneeded, a disillusioned Santa Claus (Charles Durning) quits Christmas. Through the selflessness of a little girl looking to reunite her parents for Christmas (and the help of his bumbling chief elf, Philpot (Bruce Vilanch), Santa and the child travel across America and Santa discovers that people really do need him and care about other people.

A disgruntled worker rigs a bomb, triggered by a motion sensor, on the roller coaster at a financially troubled amusement park.

Anthony Halliday, a brilliant young surgeon, is forced to resign as chief of staff at a New York hospital when he is compelled to delay an appendectomy on the daughter of John Mitchell, a wealthy supporter of the hospital, because of an emergency operation he has to perform. The appendectomy is successful, but later complications cause the girl's death. Carol Andrews, his fiancée, regards him as a failure and leaves him. Halliday, suffering from amnesia brought on by the shocks, drifts to Scranton, Pa., where he gets work in the steel mill. He only remembers who he is when he finds himself bandaging some injured workers. The mill doctor, Miller, asks him to become his assistant. Halliday remains at the mill under the name of John Davis. Because of many accidents at the mill, the smelter boss, Joe Kosovic is demoted. He becomes friendly with Halliday and invites him home for dinner, where he becomes attracted to Gerta, Joe school-teacher daughter.

Years after the death of her husband, Kitty McNeil takes her son and flees from the home of her wealthy and controlling mother-in-law. Alone and jobless in New York, she runs into an old flame, her USO partner Donald Elwood, who agrees to help her fight for custody of the child.

A stage star finds herself torn between a wealthy older man and a handsome younger one.

William Lucas plays a lorry driver who is recently out of prison. He becomes a target when it s discovered that he knows where he can find plates for making forged banknotes.

Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

Two mothers, one biological, one stepmother, fight for the custody and love of 13-year-old Andrea.

A successful businesswoman falls in love with one of her (much younger) factory workers. She doesn't know that he is in love with her younger sister.

Old Pop, a retired factory worker, lives in a former industrial area of Beijing with his extended family. He likes going to the market with his old colleague, Lao Chang. One day, he recognizes a face he had been unable to forget: his first love, Li Ying. An elegant old woman, Li Ying seems to have trouble remembering people, and her daughter is openly hostile to Old Pop. Despite these obstacles, the two elders start meeting in secret. Discovering that Li Ying has Alzheimer, Old Pop plays little games with her to exercise her mind. As in his award-winning first films, Liu Hao uses non-professional actors to recount an unusual love affair with a poetic and humorous touch.